About Wordplay

Save the Date: Wordplay 2020

More than 10,000 people participated with us at the inaugural Wordplay event! We are continually amazed by the readers and writers in this community. Thank you to everyone who donated, sponsored, volunteered, exhibited, moderated, participated, and attended Wordplay 2019!

We're still going through participant surveys and evaluations, which will help us make adjustments and planning decisions as we gear up for Wordplay 2020. Many more details will be released in the months ahead—stay tuned! For now please save the date: Wordplay 2020 will be May 9, 2020. See you there!

The Loft’s Wordplay launched May 11-12, 2019 as Minnesota's largest celebration of readers, writers, and great books.

About Us

The Loft’s Wordplay launched in May 2019 as Minnesota's largest celebration of readers, writers, and great books. Over 10,000 people showed up for the inaugural festival weekend, joining famous authors like Stephen King, Edwidge Danticat, and Amy Tan in a celebration of books. We enjoyed readings, conversations, writing workshops, kids’ activities, and one-of-a-kind happenings with outdoor stages, cooking stages, book signings, quiet reading corners, boisterous parties, food trucks, beer tents, and books, books, books.

Minnesota has one of the most celebrated literary communities in the country. We are rich with presses, locally owned bookstores, author events, writing classes, and great writers. We are perennially ranked one of the most literate communities in the country. A community like ours deserves a celebration like Wordplay.

There is something for every reader at Wordplay. Whether your book club reads literary fiction or paranormal zombie romance, whether you get your books at your library or on your e-reader, or even if the last book you read was a movie, this festival is for you. Wordplay’s mission is to celebrate the ways in which people connect to and through words and welcomes anyone who shares a belief in the connective power of story. Join us in 2020!

"There are so many things that bond us in our pride for our city and state—including our love of words.

Minnesota is consistently ranked as one of the most literate states, and Minneapolis is home to dozens of publishers, multiple thriving booksellers, and the preeminent literary center in the country in the Loft. In addition, the economic impact is enormous: publishers and writers comprise more than $1 billion each year in economic impact to the state of Minnesota.

That’s why I’m thrilled that we get to celebrate our love of words, books, and authors together at the Loft’s inaugural Wordplay Festival in downtown Minneapolis this spring. There will be something for all ages and tastes—whether you’re into biographies, mystery novels, cookbooks, teen lit or if the last book you “read” was a movie adaptation. Reading unites people from all walks of life. I’m looking forward to connecting with book lovers from Minneapolis and around the country."

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Major support for Loft activities is provided by Loft members, Amazon.com, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, Jerome Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Surdna Foundation, Target, and the voters of Minnesota, through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.